


J'ai oublié (I forgot)

by jeparleunpeudefrancais



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, M/M, Please please please read at your own discretion, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-15 03:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14782499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeparleunpeudefrancais/pseuds/jeparleunpeudefrancais
Summary: Enjolras often forgot to eat. This in itself wasn’t worrying to any of his friends. He was a grown man and could take care of himself before anything became too problematic. Enjolras hid behind this perfect excuse everyone had seemed to accept.





	1. Just Fine

**Author's Note:**

> Please read carefully if you have dealt with an eating disorder in the past or think you may be dealing with one right now or are in ANY danger of falling into one. I had an eating disorder, so this is largely based off of my experiences. I guess it's to help me get over what I went though without being like "I did this" and "I did that." I won't put explicit numbers just in case that's triggering, and I only know about the weights my body reached. I will also not put the number of calories, so you're probably going to see XXXX as a replacement. Again, please be careful as you read this. If you need to talk, I am completely free and will not judge you.

Enjolras often forgot to eat. This in itself wasn’t worrying to any of his friends. He was a grown man and could take care of himself before anything became too problematic. Enjolras hid behind this perfect excuse everyone had seemed to accept.

And it was only halfway untrue. When he first moved into his college dorms at the beginning of his junior year—much to the dismay of his parents—he forgot to eat on his own, often going for lunch with Joly or Courfeyrac. Then after his first break back home, he had stepped on his bathroom scale for no particular reason and noticed the weight loss that had occurred. His heart skipped a beat and he bit his lip, stepping off the scale. _Just 5 more pounds couldn’t hurt,_ he thought to himself.  _Besides, I wouldn’t want to fall victim to “Freshman 15.”_ Never mind that he was a junior and well past that danger.

And so, it began. It was slow at first and he didn’t notice much change. Breakfast wasn’t always a staple in his day, so it was easy to cut out completely. The extra sleep in the morning was also rewarding. By the second semester, homework had picked up a ridiculous amount and it wasn’t hard to miss the lunch dates with one of his friends.

Enjolras loved the constant numbers running through his head. He couldn’t spend all his time immersed in school or protests, so he spent his free time counting calories consumed or burned. As the weeks passed, four-digit numbers became three-digit numbers and he began to notice a change. His red coat hung a bit looser off his frame and exercising became much more enjoyable. And if he was more tired than before, no one was any the wiser.

Enjolras is standing at the head of the table at the Musain, the university’s study café, when he realizes that he could really get away with this thing. None of his friends had mentioned anything and thought nothing of his constant refusals to join them for a drink or a meal. His pride felt strong in his chest faded to self-doubt in the darkness of his room later. If no one had mentioned anything about his weight, it must mean that he looks the same as before.

The thought made him jump out of bed and hurry over to his roommate’s full-body mirror. Montparnasse was gone for the evening and Enjolras stripped down to his boxers quickly. He turned around in the mirror, examining his smooth skin, scowling. After all his hard work, he still looked the same! Worse, if he were being honest. He pulled the scale from under his bed, scared to see the damage he had done somewhere. But when he stepped on, the number flashed lower than his last reading. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and stepped off. _Something must be off,_ he thought, getting back on the scale and staring in disbelief as the same number blinked at him.

“That can’t be right,” Enjolras muttered to himself, pushing a hand through his hair. “I’ll just have to add five pounds to any future readings to make up for the error.”

He couldn’t fall back into bed knowing that he looked like he did. He switched on the room light and did sit-ups until his legs were shaking and too sore to continue. And then he jogged in place for ten minutes.

When he woke up the next morning, the sweat from the night before had cooled his skin uncomfortably and he thought of a new diet plan while he showered. _No more than XXX calories per day,_ Enjolras told himself. The rational side of him protested, saying that that wasn’t healthy or good for him at all. One look down at his legs overrode that voice and he was doubly determined.

It was a Thursday and he had woken up way earlier than any of his classes. His heart raced as he laced up his trainers and left for the running track on campus. It was about an hour later when the snow started and everyone else that had been there left the track for warmer shelter. Enjolras grit his teeth, _It’s just a bit of snow, what’s the problem?_ He kept running until half an hour before his class.

He arrived at the lecture hall seconds before the bell and slid into his seat next to Combeferre, who looked rather alarmed at the snow sticking to his hair. Enjolras waved off his whispered questions and tried to focus on the professor. No one knew his thoughts were racing with thoughts of _coffee, gum, water, damn I had a piece of toast before I ran, guess I can’t have another cup of coffee._

The rest of the day passes in a blur until he’s leading a meeting at the Musain. Everything is going beautifully; he is organizing the protest against the dean of students, Grantaire is only mildly intoxicated and actually understanding his point of view, and Combeferre had dropped his worried expression at seeing Enjolras rush into class covered in snow. Everything is going beautifully until his stomach growls loudly during a lapse in voices. He hoped no one had heard the noise until Courfeyrac raised his eyebrows into his curls and smirked. “I think that’s our cue for the end of the meeting,” he said, standing up. “Come on, it’s been a while since we all ate together.”

Enjolras feels his heart seize in his chest and wonders if it’s going to stop for a second. He tries to think of an excuse, but Marius is already pushing him outside of the door and Cosette is saying how great it’ll be to talk to Enjolras after so long.

When they stop at the local pub, he wishes he could run from the front before they make him eat. He wishes he could scream and get away and go jogging because he must have absorbed some calories just by thinking about them, right? And, _oh god I have to check my weight._ But instead his loud group of friends steer him into the dark building and they’re all sitting at a table in the back. He’s sandwiched between Grantaire and Bousset and his vision becomes tunneled as he looks at the menu.

And even though his favorite meal at that place had always been a hamburger with chips, he orders a salad and doesn’t add the dressing on top. Numbers are hurriedly passing through his head before he realizes that everyone is staring at him. “We’re ordering dessert, want to pitch in?” Joly supplies to his confused expression.

“Oh.” Enjolras says. “No.”

“Don’t worry,” Bousset elbows him in the ribs, “you can have some of mine.”

Enjolras gives him a forced smile and returns to the numbers in his head. The unfortunate thing is when the dessert arrives. It is, regrettably, his favorite, and he doesn’t have the energy to fight off the spoon being slipped into his hand. _One taste_ , his head yells and, _oh no that’s too big._

But he’s so hungry and he can’t stop, and the food feels so good going into him and he ends up eating more than he had planned for the day.

He’s the last person there with Joly, planning to run the way to his dorm room to reverse some of his damage. When he gets back, he strips naked in seconds and stands on the scale. The scale blinks up at him and he wants to cry at the number. His stomach lurches and he runs to the bathroom, vomiting up a largely undigested portion of his dinner. His stomach contracts around itself and he retches loudly. _You can’t eat that much suddenly,_ his brain tells him. _You’re not used to eating anymore._

* * *

He wakes up the next day feeling rather dead and is grateful Montparnasse doesn’t ask him why there’s a pile of Enjolras’s clothes on his side of the room. He shudders at the memory of last night and brushes his teeth quickly to head to his first class. His thoughts wander as he struggles against the pushing wind to the lecture hall. He had to exercise for at least a few hours today, if not more. His heart dropped into his churning stomach at the thought. Although he would never stop, he hated exercising now. His limbs felt like lead and he coughed for a good couple breaths each time he ran.

But he was finally, _finally_ noticing some changes in the mirror. His ribs became more defined on his pale skin and he thought he could see his thighs shrinking. Already prominent cheekbones stood higher on his face and he noticed that he had begun to lose some hair. After he got really into the issue, _not an eating disorder, those people are in trouble, I’m just losing a bit of weight,_ he had googled why his skin became drier and he couldn’t eat anymore. He was hit with a plethora of websites on anorexia nervosa and he ignored those glaring words to find the list of symptoms and signs. Enjolras now had a mental (sometimes written if he was really bored in class) checklist of symptoms he was displaying. But he still hadn’t fainted or gone a full 24 hours without eating, so he was just fine, really.

By the next protest they had planned, Enjolras’s jeans no longer fit and he goes to the store for a new pair. _Just because the size is smaller doesn’t mean you’ve lost enough weight,_ his mind hisses stubbornly as he tries them on in the dressing room and scrutinizes his bloated reflection. He shows up to the protest ten minutes late because he got sidetracked on the track and had to catch his breath in shallow pants before he rode his bike to the quad.

The protest is relatively peaceful and he’s thankful for that; he’s not sure if he has the energy to do anything besides verbal arguments. Combeferre steps with him to the side. “Enjolras, are those new jeans?”

Enjolras isn’t stupid and knows Combeferre isn’t stupid. He isn’t asking casually. “Yeah, uh, my old ones didn’t fit anymore.”

Combeferre’s expression becomes more worried, if at all possible. “I’ve…noticed that you’re losing a bit of weight. I’m worried about you.”

Enjolras tries to turn his face into a mask of joviality, “I’ve lost a bit with these tests I’m studying for, but no problem!” His arm reaches out to rest on Combeferre’s shoulder, a movement he wonders if it seems a little too casual.

If it’s weird, Combeferre doesn’t let on and just sighs. “Okay. But please eat something when you get a chance, okay?”

“Of course, Ferre,” Enjolras says, feeling sick at his lie to one of his most caring friends.

* * *

 Enjolras feels even worse when he turns down his friends’ offer to join them on spring break. There’s no way he could join them, not with all of them constantly watching him and wondering why he wouldn’t eat.

Instead he goes home and spends most of his time at the local pool swimming laps for hours until his arms are burning, and his chest feels like it’s constricting on itself.

When he returns to campus he begins to wonder if he’s dying. The minute he was alone, Enjolras jumped onto the scale, barely noticing that he had reached his newest goal. _Not enough,_ echoes in his head and he adds five pounds to that value and sets his goal even lower. Exercising had become considerably harder, as he cannot run for more than 15 minutes before his heart is pounding so loudly he has to stop and his legs are threatening to give out under his weight.

His disgusting weight. He needs to be lower. He needs to weigh less. He needs to be lighter. He needs some water.

After spring break Montparnasse became even more absent and Enjolras could exercise into the unholy hours of the morning, sweat breaking against his sallow skin. He barely looks in the mirror out of the fear of what he’ll see and if he looks bad, his friends don’t say anything. They don’t even say anything when he misses an entire meeting because he couldn’t wake up from his “short nap.”

An unexpected cold front moves in and he spends his time either in class or wrapped up in any blanket he can find. He had even stooped to ask his friends for their extras. His favorite was Grantaire’s; it was large and blue and had a few old paint stains. Enjolras told himself that he was so cold because of the weather and not because of his eating…issue. When it first got cold, Enjolras stripped to his undershirt and boxers and let his body shiver violently in his dorm room. It burns more calories, he had read somewhere. But when the cold made his fingernails turn blue and made him visibly tremble, he decided to forego those extra few calories and stay warm. And even after the front moves on, Enjolras is still so cold, so _goddamn_ cold, that he keeps the blankets from his friends and they don’t seem to remember them.

* * *

 And then suddenly, Enjolras takes up smoking, which is insane. Enjolras has never put any harmful substances and had only had three drinks in the three years he had been legal. But he starts smoking almost as bad as Grantaire and his friends are worried. Anytime the subject is brought up, however, Enjolras conveniently excuses himself from the conversation and is gone before they know where he went.

Enjolras is pulling his hair into a ponytail as he enters the Musain when his friends all cheer and pull him into a hug one by one. He is confused until he hears “Happy birthday!” falling happily from their lips. Birthday? How could he have forgotten that? Oh well, not important. What’s important is the large cake sitting in his place with three candles and white frosting.

“Grantaire helped decorate the cake, so if it’s a mess, go after him,” Courfeyrac said, holding his hands up in a mock surrender.

Grantaire flushed across the room, “It’s not that bad.”

“No…” Enjolras said, looking over at the who-knows-how-many-calories item that was occupying the head of the table. “It’s good…but I’m having dinner at my parents’ house. They wanted to do something, uh, special.” The lie sounds weak even to him. “But don’t wait for me to have the cake!”

Courfeyrac’s face falls. “You won’t even stay for a slice?”

“No, I have to go now. But I’ll take some for the road,” he says, knowing what to say to placate his concerned friends.

A paper plate is pushed into his hand and he exits the Musain. As soon as he is around the corner, he pushes the plate deep into a trash can and wipes his fingers on his jacket just in case he touched the frosting at all.

He hurries back to his dorm and needs to do something, anything to slow his shaking limbs and racing heart. He hates the saliva that had collected in his mouth at the sight of food and goes to brush his teeth. A sudden, terrifying thought has him spitting the toothpaste in the sink and googling how many calories were consumed from toothpaste. What was supposed to be a quick five-minute search turned into 30 minutes and he had lost valuable exercise time, dammit.

He isn’t sure how long he had been jogging up and down the back staircases when someone pushes open the door to study in the solitude of the “alarmed” staircase. (It must have been a while because he feet hurt like hell). His limbs are shaking, and his cheeks burn at being caught exercising and he quickly exits onto his hall and enters his room. He notices Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Joly sitting scattered around his room a few seconds after the startled noise escapes his mouth. Combeferre is looking at him the most intensely.

“Ferre!” Enjolras said, crossing nervously to his refrigerator to grab a bottle of water to calm his rolling stomach. “What’s up?”

“You didn’t go to your parents’ house for dinner,” he said darkly, his arms crossed over his chest. Enjolras wants to protest, but he knows it isn’t a question. His heart is racing but he can’t quite bring his mind into enough clarity to think of a response that wouldn’t betray him.

“What the fuck is going on, Enjolras?” Combeferre says evenly.

Enjolras is so stunned at Combeferre swearing he almost spills every secret from these past months. Almost.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Enjolras says instead, the response sounding beyond pathetic. But he couldn’t care less; he had to get back to exercising and he couldn’t remember everything he ate today, and his legs are shaking under him like the bastards want to give out on him and they can’t because _he still has to freaking exercise._

Combeferre runs a hand through his hair and looks about as pissed as Enjolras has ever seen him.

“I need a cigarette,” he says quickly before ducking out of the room and rushing down the stairs, anything to get away from the formidable group of men in his room.

He ends up on the steps outside one of the back doors of the dorm building and notices with a detached interest that Grantaire is smoking a cigarette, leaning against the railing.

He considers asking if he was there to harass him also, but instead asks for a cigarette. Grantaire raises his eyebrow, but hands one over and lights it. They smoke in silence for a few moments. The smoke burns Enjolras’s lungs and helps to sate the deep pain in his stomach from hunger and fear of being found out.

The smoke still hurts and makes him want to cough, but he’ll be damned if he shows any weakness in front of Grantaire. Especially over something as trivial as a cigarette.

All too soon Enjolras has tossed the butt into the grass and is digging the toe of his shoe into the cement on the bottom stair. “What’re you doing out here?”

Enjolras lets out a bitter laugh and looks at the man across from him, the way his dark curls fell into his eyes. “Seems half of our friends decided to stalk me and found out I didn’t actually go home.”

Grantaire looks like he wants to say something at that confession, but thankfully doesn’t mention it. Enjolras almost wishes he had said something. “Doesn’t matter,” he said darkly. “I’ll have to go back in and talk to them.”

Grantaire nods as if to let him go but opens his mouth at the last possible second. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

Enjolras feels anger surge in his chest at the question and turns to leave. Only his stupid legs actually do give out this time and his toe catches on a stair and he’s falling and _damn this is going to hurt._ As stupid as it sounded, time moved a bit slower until Grantaire stepped in and awkwardly pushed him back to his feet. It wasn’t graceful or some amazing gesture, but it did keep Enjolras from breaking his nose, and he was grateful.

“You good?” Grantaire asked and the look of concern in _his_ eyes was almost too much.

“Fine,” Enjolras says, trying to steady his shaking legs and he bolts inside the building and up to his floor. He lets out a rushed breath as he steels himself to face his three friends still sitting in his room.

He pushes open the door and the three look up in unison; it’s almost comical. And Enjolras has a story forming in his mind as his friends are also starting to form their questions, but no one is able to get any words out before Enjolras is pushing past them into the bathroom.

 _What the fuck did I even eat today?_ he wonders as he kneels in front of the toilet and dry heaves. He’s vaguely aware of his friends shouting his name in alarm and someone is holding back his hair except there’s nothing in him—it makes no sense that he’s throwing up. But here he is, and his friends are worried and he’s worried and wonders if he’s about to die and _damn maybe I did go too far._

He hears another voice through his haze before he passes out cold.


	2. Sorry!

Hey readers,

I know I just started this story but I'm going to have to put it on hold for a bit. I'm going to China this month and probably won't have internet access (I'm from the US). I'll try to write on my phone if I have time, but it'll have to be after I get back home to publish more.

I'm sorry to just kinda leave this hanging!

But, I will be back if everything goes smoothly on the trip.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to split this into chapter although technically I could just make it one long thing. I noticed more people saw this than I thought would ever see it, so here's something to "whet your appetite." This really became longer than I expected, but good for catharsis? Either way, if you've read this far and you do have an eating disorder///are in recovery but not recovery-focused, please be careful and talk to me/a trusted person about what you're feeling. Recovery is a strange journey, but I've enjoyed the benefits so far.


End file.
